inFAMOUS: Shard
by Jak Sandrow
Summary: Three years before the events of inFAMOUS: Second Son, the Conduits aren't sitting around on their backsides. This is the story of one of them, and how he made his own little niche in Conduit history. Rated M for language and a smidgy of fade-to-black content. OC x OC. Aside from Augustine, there are no inFAMOUS characters.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: This story is almost pure OC, save for Augustine, so if you were expecting DelsinxFetch, look somewhere else. I do not own inFAMOUS, inFAMOUS 2, inFAMOUS: Second Son, Sucker Punch, or any video games related to these. I simply enjoy writing stories.**

* * *

_3 years before the events of inFAMOUS: Second Son_

* * *

Generally, when you live an average, normal, everyday life, you expect to continue living an average, normal, everyday life. But sometimes, extraordinary things can happen even to ordinary people.

Take me, for example. Just an ordinary kid with a stupid dream and more guts than brain, apparently.

How else do you explain attempting to bluster through a DUP squadron?

* * *

_Click_

_Click_

_Click_

Fidgeting, attempting really hard not to explode, I was pretty much sitting on my hands. The person behind the desk was sure taking his sweet pretty time.

"Sayz here yer uh… 'underwater ceramic technician'. Care t'elab'rate?"

The slow drawl wasn't helping much either.

"That basically means I, ah, wash the dishes…"

"Uh huh… And you were fired for…?"

"No good reason," I admitted, gruffly. Did I really need to explain that the dishwasher was defective?

Okay, so maybe shoving a knife up the water intake to save on water bills was a bad idea. But still… should the

"Welp, Mr. …"

"Mason. Josh Mason." As if I haven't already told him about five times.

"Well, Mr. Mason, I can't 'zactly see why we should let y' on. In just 7 months, y've been through almost as many jobs. I don't see how we could keep _you_."

"But…"

"No. I'm sorry, Mr. Mason." And just like that, 'Sorry', it was over.

* * *

Scuffing a toe in the pavement, worried as to where the next _meal_ was going to come from, I tried and failed to see the bright side of all this. With seven bucks, finding a half-decent meal, _and_ a good place to sleep, _and_ bus fare to get back to the 'safer' part of town… would be difficult, to say the least. And with no job, no advance, and basically no cash, life wasn't exactly being easy on me. Not that there had been much of a change recently.

A shoulder connected with my chest, and like that, I was scrabbling back to my feet. "Hey, watch it, jerk!" And the exhilaration that came with prepping for a fight instantly solidified into an icy ball, as the person I had so politely asked to move turned.

It was a fully armed, fully armored DUP grunt. With 3 compadres.

Normally, being 6'4" lets me stare down even the nastiest of nasties, but there was no way in hell I was going to try to even think about considering possibly maybe staring down a _squadron_ of DUP. And, well, I'm not exactly the _most_ law-abiding citizen in Detroit. I'm not that bad, but… we'll just go with the fact that I've jacked my fair share of cars, et cetera…

_Crap._ And I ran. I didn't care how incriminating I looked, all I needed to know was this: the DUP did have me on record (number 18 down the list, if you're counting), I had just mouthed off at a whole squadron, so chances were good that I was screwed.

An abandoned alley never looked so good. As I heard the safeties click off on their MGs, I had barely made it to the alley before they opened fire.

_What the hell?_ Usually they ask questions, _then_ shoot, not the other way around. I must have gotten them _really _riled up.

But then I saw that they weren't shooting at me. Or at the alley at all, for that matter.

And there was an insistent… _crackling_. And a smell like used matches.

Curious, easing around the building corner, I could see _everything_. The fires. The mini – explosions. The absolute mayhem.

And the person causing it all.

Whoever this guy was (obviously he _was_ a Conduit, I wasn't that dumb), he was _good_. Firebomb that DUP, take out this guy with a smoke bomb… Well, that explained the sulfur smell.

As a DUP armored carrier rounded the corner, heading past me from behind up towards the Conduit, the guy turned around. I could see what he was wearing; just a casual hoodie and loose jeans, but although they looked like they were burning, they didn't seem to be getting damaged. That was interesting.

Keeping behind a convenient line of benches along the boulevard, I watched as the Conduit began to almost glow, then suddenly he disappeared. No, not quite. He was _way_ up in the sky, just hovering on a cloud of smoke… Oh no.

I'd read too many Thor® comics not to know what happens next. The 'Grand Slam'. The 'big finale'. Basically, this guy was about to pile-drive the truck, and there wasn't a bloody thing I could do about it, because he was already halfway down, and I was screwed.

When you're about to die, your body allows you to sort of slow down time enough so that you can see every little detail in hi-def slow motion. I noticed irrelevant details, like I was the only civvie stupid enough to stick around after the light show, or that the truck seemed to glow bright blue.

When he hit, the world flipped on its head, then promptly collapsed in on itself. The truck hit me before the shockwave did, that much I remember. Although I'm not sure which hurt more, the truck itself, or the glass shards to the back, as I bounced back through a window into what must have been a jewelry store. The last thing I remember before everything went black was a large chunk of that glowing blue stuff impaling me. It felt… cold…

* * *

_There weren't supposed to be any civilians here! That was her primary thought, as she raced into what was left of Byron's Jewelers. There was a guy, maybe about her age, pinned beneath a DUP truck. A chunk of blue shard was what was primarily pinning him to the linoleum floor… and it looked painful. The poor kid was unconscious, from the looks of it, with glass pieces embedded in his arms and legs, slowly letting his life blood drain away. She wouldn't be able to do this all by herself. She could stop the bleeding – which she did – but she couldn't get the glass shards out without actual medical help. Though… she should probably take the large blue one out._

* * *

_Bursting into the emergency ward, she thought to herself – not for the first time – _Why is this kid so blasted heavy?

"_Doctor! Nurse! Somebody!" she yelled, trying to get someone's attention. The secretary behind the desk took one look at the guy and immediately paged the doctor. _

_The previously sleepy-looking emergency reception room quickly became professional, fast, and exacting. A stretcher was brought in, so she put the injured guy down on it, and watched as he was rushed off. _

"_Miss?"_

"_Hm?" she asked, turning around to look at the secretary. _

"_Do you have any information on the victim? Location and cause of injury?"_

"_Umm… a Conduit blasted him through a glass wall." _

"_Ohhh!" the secretary gasped. "Did you see it happen? Where was it?" _

"_It was…" Did she want to give away where it happened? Well… just in case they tried to cross-reference it. "It was on Lakeview and Main. I only got there afterwards, and I managed to find him struggling, pinned beneath a truck. That was when he went unconscious."_

"_How did you get him out?"_

_Toeing the floor, she thought up a story that would actually keep her out of the limelight._

* * *

Slowly surfacing out of a black watery haze, two things were apparent. I wasn't dead, and my side hurt like _hell_.

"Auuughhh… what happened?"

Only my tongue was glued to the top of my mouth, so it sounded more like "Aannn… nnnuhhmflmph?"

I could hear fragments of conversation; "He's awake…" "…we use painkiller or knockout?…" "…glass isn't moving…"

A shadow loomed over me and spoke. "You're going to be fine, we just need you to go back to sleep, okay?"

So I nodded, not trusting my mouth to give the right message.

A small, sharp pain in my left arm dissolved into blissful darkness, and I embraced it wholeheartedly.

* * *

"_Patient is asleep, begin glass extraction."_

"…_um… sir?"_

"_Yes?"_

"_The glass… it's not moving."_

"_Has the bleeding stopped?"_

"_Yes, but -"_

"_It's scabbed over. Remove the glass so I can check for infection."_

"_That's what I'm saying. I can't remove it."_

"_Here, pass the clamps. Thanks, and…"_

"_It's not moving. At all."_

"_I can see that."_

"_There's someone here who saw the accident, right? Bring her in, maybe she knows something about this."_

* * *

"_Listen, Ms. …"_

"_James."_

"_Ms. James. Do you remember anything strange or out of the ordinary at the scene of the accident?"_

"_Well, there was…"_

_Actually… the blue shards… she knew from personal experience that more shards meant a wider variety of powers. That, plus her using her powers to heal the guy… It was only a theory, but still, there was a chance, however slim… _

"_Um… could I take him with me? He, ah, he's my brother, and I'd like to take him back home."_

"_I'm sorry, ma'am, but he needs to stay here, where he's safe. This actually looks like the work of Conduits, so we don't know how to help him until we can get a Conduit in to help take a look at him. Preferably Director Augustine. This is a very unique case."_

"_But I'm -" She stopped herself before she would give anything away by accident. "I know people who can get a Conduit to help him. But I need to take him with me."_

"_I'm afraid we can't let you do that."_

_She had expected this. "LOOK!" she shouted, suddenly, pointing out the window where a car was on fire. As soon as the doctor had turned, she grabbed the guy, and was out the door like that._

* * *

_She didn't know what it was about this guy, or why she felt compelled to help him, but something – a gut instinct, perhaps – told her that this was more than just an average Joe. That her knocking a DUP truck into him was probably a good thing after all. That is, if he ever woke up from the medication._

_From what it looked like, when she did an Orbital Drop (that was what the DUPs were calling it; she liked it) on the truck, it must have knocked the kid into the store, where he got partially impaled. She used 'kid', but again, he was probably her age, give or take. _

_Why did she even care? It wasn't like she knew the guy or anything. _Getting soft, I guess, _she grinned to herself._

* * *

"Ow." With that clichéd introduction, I sat up, once again among the world of the living. Putting a hand to my side, I poked, but there didn't seem to be much pain at all. Actually, I felt better than I had in a long time. Especially considering the inch-long glass shards in my arm.

"Well, the mysterious stranger awakes." Turning, I saw I was in some sort of room… thing… and there was someone else there.

"Uhhh… hi. I'm Josh."

"I'm Cassandra."

"Hi. Uh… where am I?"

"This? Oh, this is, uh, this is where I live." Now that I had some time to process what was happening, I could see that where she lived was, well…

"Where _is_ this?"

"The docks. It's solitary, for the most part unguarded, and actually has a nice view."

Looking to where she was pointing, I could see the sun rising above the skyline of Detroit, the light skimming off the water. It _was_ a nice view.

"So… why am _I_ here?"

"Well, I figured I could take you to some people who knew how to heal you – properly." She gestured to my arm, and I was once again reminded of the shards. "That, and I think there was a chance of Augustine finding out I was a Conduit. A small chance, true, but…"

"Wait. Why would they think you're a Conduit? You didn't tell them, did you?"

"No, I didn't, but… I don't really handle well for thinking on the fly."

"Fair enough. … so, wait, you're a Conduit?"

"Crap!" She whipped her hands to her mouth. "Don't you dare tell _anyone._ Or I swear I will gut you. With a fireball."

"Not gonna tell, not gonna tell," I backpedaled, raising my hands in surrender. "It's all good. Actually, I'm pro-Conduit, so your secret's safe with me."

"Still," I continued, "um, what was your hypothesis for the glass shards sticking and staying in my arm? And not hurting and all?"

"Oh. Well, when you… here," she hopped off her chair. Creating a smoke bubble, she recreated the battle, using hazy smoke to represent her powers, and thicker smoke and mini fireballs for buildings and people, respectively. "So, for my best guess, you were here, right?" I confirmed that yes, I was behind the benches. "So, I fly up, do an Orbital Drop -"

"Orbital Drop?"

"That's what the DUPs are calling it. And quiet, don't interrupt," she admonished, whacking my arm. "So I do an Orbital Drop, and knock the truck backwards into you." The smoke moved, following her motions. "It knocks you back into the store, where – here, I'll zoom in." The scene blows away, save for the jewelry store, which expands and grows to fill the room. "I find you here, pinned underneath a shard."

"Shard? Of what?"

"I _said_ don't interrupt. This is a shard," she instructed, holding up a glowing blue fragment of… something. It kind of looked like rock, to me… kind of. "It was pinning you to the floor. I stopped your bleeding long enough to get you to the hospital, but by the time you got there, you didn't need it. The hospital, I mean."

"So, the shards. They didn't even try to get them out?"

"No, they did. They just couldn't budge them. Which brings me to my theory, that -"

"I'm a Conduit."

"No! Now shut up! My _theory_ is that the shard briefly enhanced your body's natural ability to heal itself. Sort of like Wolverine, only for a short period of time -"

"You read Marvel comics?"

When she just looked at me, not impressed at _all_, if I could judge anything from the glare, I cowered a little. "Alright, fine, I'll shut up."

"Yes, I've read a few. So, yeah, that's my theory. And your body healed around the glass. Which could pose a problem for you, I'm thinking."

"That, or I'm a Conduit. And before you slap me, I didn't interrupt," I explained hurriedly.

"You're _not_ a Conduit," she said, giving me a smug grin. "Trust me. If you were a Conduit, you'd be able to fall off a roof and be just fine when you hit the ground. You'd pretty much be able to fly. I mean, I have smoke, and I can do this." Running out of the shipping crate that she lived in, she fell. I rushed to the entrance, to watch her float off on twin jets.

"I see," I mused. "Very nice."

"And you can't do that, so… ha," she teased, landing back again on the roof of the crate.

Not being able to take much more snark, I asked, with forced politeness, "So when are we going to meet these 'experts' of yours?"

"Soon as they arrive," she said, pointing to where a boat was skimming its way along to the docks.

* * *

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	2. Chapter 2

**DISCLAIMER: This story is almost pure OC, save for Augustine, so if you were expecting DelsinxFetch, look somewhere else. I do not own inFAMOUS, inFAMOUS 2, inFAMOUS: Second Son, Sucker Punch, or any video games related to these. I simply enjoy writing stories.**

* * *

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**Yo dawg.**

** BongoDumbs: Awesome name. And I will pick up with the descriptions. I just don't want to go too far into them.**

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* * *

There were three other Conduits in the boat; the oldest by a good ten years, Nathan, had control over metal. Seeing as how we were in the loading docks, with literally tons of scrap metal lying around, I didn't think he'd feel unwelcome.

The second guy, of about twenty-ish, introduced himself as Mutt, though I later found out his name was Greg. He was a novice at this sort of thing, but he wasn't too bad with his power of brick.

The third person to step out of the ship was a girl, Beth. She had glass powers, and she had had them pretty much since birth.

Cassy told me this as they got out of the motorboat. She went to greet them, grinning like they were all old friends. Which they probably were. They laughed, probably traded stories for about 5 minutes before they remembered I was here. Kind of awkward…

Cassy finally introduced me. "This is Josh. Josh, this is Beth, Nathan, and Mutt." The latter grinned at his name. "Guys, Josh has a… problem."

"Can we get somewhere less conspicuous first?" Nathan asked, fingers twitching. "Like on a building roof?"

A murmur of assent was all he needed, and he was off, metal plates rising to follow his feet up to the roof of a nearby apartment.

Mutt shrugged, looking at me. "He's usually like that. He thinks we're all kids, so he's sorta taken us under his wing to keep us super-safe. Try not to let it cramp your style, though." He grinned, and he was off, too, running up the side of the building, bricks bulging to give him a stairway.

"And I suppose you have some sort of complaint, too?" I asked Beth.

"No," she said, shrugging amicably. She had a definite British accent, which gave her voice a lilt I found somewhat… nice. "But Nathan's right. We should definitely get to the roof. Especially since they've got a head start." She flashed me a bright grin, and took off. I couldn't see how she got up the wall, but up the wall she did get.

Cassy rolled her eyes at me. "Beth's a bit of a show-off. Mutt, too. Nathan's… Nathan's alright, I guess."

She grinned at me suddenly, a grin that worried me a little. "How are you getting up the side?" she asked, too innocently.

"Um…" I thought about it. "Probably climb. I've done plenty of climbing, so this should be a breeze."

"If you're sure you don't need a boost…" She left the offer hanging, a swirl of smoke curling around her arm.

I swallowed. "No, I'm good. I'll just be a while." She shrugged and, turning into a wraith of smoke, flitted up the building before reforming up top.

Letting out a low whistle at her obvious skill, I began the slow and arduous climb up the apartment's side. It wasn't too difficult; plenty of handholds in the brick side gave me lots of leverage, so it only took ten minutes or so.

When I got to the top, Nathan was playing 'X's and O's' in the dirt with Mutt. Beth and Cassy were arguing about something, but I didn't hear what it was. I was just a little worried about being eleven stories up with no way of getting down besides climbing, and I really didn't want to do that again.

One of them bumped into me, and I almost fell over the side of the stone railing.

"Hey!" Lurching back, I swore. "Could you not try to knock me over the side of the building? It's kind of a long way down! And unlike you fancy Conduit people, I can't exactly break-then-reform-again."

The women gave me a glare that assured me of their scathing opinion of me. But behind them, Nathan looked up from where he had been scribbling in the dirt, to look at me strangely. A grin slowly spread across his face.

"Cassy… what was it you said about Josh? And his healing thingie?"

"Yes," she said briskly. "The glass in his arms won't come out, because his skin thinks that the glass is a part of itself."

Beth spoke up. "Can I try to get it out?" This was directed more towards me than anything else, so I shrugged a consent.

Whatever she had been planning to do, though, wasn't happening. I just sat there for thirty seconds, my arm dangling in front of me like an idiot, while Beth's face grew ever more frustrated.

"Nope," she conceded. "They're in too deep for me to even yank out of his skin."

Nathan got up, motioning for Mutt to follow. "So you've got a mutant healing thing going on, right?"

"Uhh…" As Nathan came forward, my hand slipped on the wall edge. "Ye-e-es?"

* * *

"Is this really a good idea?" I asked nervously, as Nathan and Matt hoisted me up on the lip of the wall. "And why can't I do it myself?"

"This will tell if you are a Conduit or just a really fast healer. If you go splat, then you're human. But if you blow up or something, then you're obviously a Conduit."

"You're instilling me with confidence, Mutt," I remarked dryly.

"That's my job!" he joked.

"You need to be perfectly relaxed," Nathan explained. "That way when your body reacts to the falling, you'll have the most time to react to it, and all your attention will be on the landing."

"Alright…" I said, not at all reassured.

"One…" Nathan counted.

_Aw…_

"Two…"

…_crap…_

"Three! Heave!" With that, they threw me off the building.

"AWWW CRAP!" I yelled, arms flailing as they attempted to –

CRUNCH

* * *

_They peered over the side of the building._

"_Is he alright?" Beth asked. _

"_Looks fine to me," Mutt commented. "Aside from the little bit of pooling blood…"_

"_Oh no_…"

_They leapt off the building, landing gently and quietly beside Josh's still body._

"_Is he even breathing?"_

* * *

As I came to, I took a massive breath of air, the world returning to definition around me.

I had managed to catch the end of a conversation. "…'s alright. He's breathing."

"No thanks to you," I grunted, pushing off from the asphalt, getting up and dusting off. The side of my head hurt, and when I pulled my hand away, it felt warm and sticky. Blood.

"Hey, look," someone – sounded like Cassy – said. "What's that on your chest?"

I looked down to see what she was talking about. "Oh. Huh. I guess I have a couple glass shards in my chest, too." They had ripped through the shirt, and they stuck out from the fabric like I had been impaled by them. Though I felt just fine.

"No," she said, sounding curious. "You didn't have those there before."

"I didn't?" I remembered back to when I had first woken up. "No… I guess not. They must have grown."

And on that last word, the shards rippled.

With a sound like a thousand feet on broken glass, the few shards on me began to drastically multiply, growing and _extending around me_ like a hug of silicon. It felt like forever then, but looking back, it was probably only a few seconds. The shards crept around me, squeezing and piercing my skin over and over and over… only it didn't hurt. I could feel them just fine; it just didn't have any pain.

Did I mention I was scared out of my wits? But I just couldn't manage to move. Not because I couldn't, but because I had had no time to react.

As the shards covered my face, I managed to catch one last glimpse of the others' shocked faces. And then the shards impaled my eye.

* * *

_Cassy and Beth were screaming,_ _pointing at the broken-glass-statue-Josh in front of them. Frozen in a picture of bewilderment, his face – or rather, where his face had been – seemed to be looking down at his arms, as they were held out almost crossed in front of him in a palm-up, confused gesture._

_Nathan, as shocked and scared as anyone else, tapped on the sculpture of glass in front of him. "…Josh?" _

* * *

I inhaled deeply for the second time in as many minutes. "Ghaaahh… ow. Do _not_ do that to me aga – what's wrong wi…" My voice sounded really gravelly, like someone had turned my vocal chords into mini-boulders. "Wha… what… what just happened to me?"

I looked down at my arms, and was immediately horrified. Because where my arms had been were now two long clumps of broken glass. The elbow bent when I told it to, but otherwise… I had no arms.

As undignified as it may have been, I figure I was entitled to a whimper or few as I tried to figure out what the _hell_ had just happened.

"Josh!"

I snapped out of my impromptu self-examination. I suddenly realized that Nathan had probably already called my name several times. "Yeah?" I asked, worried. "What just happened? Wh… who am I? And don't gloss it over. What. The. Hell. Was. That."

Nathan visibly shuddered. "You know, it's really creepy to talk to something without a mouth."

"I don't have a mouth?" I put my arm nubs to my face, but there were no defining features. I guess I looked like a store mannequin. No nose, no eyes, no hands, just a nubby head on a nubby body with basic nubby legs

"Can't help it," I apologized. "So _what happened?_"

Mutt swallowed, and spoke up. "Um… I think… you are a Conduit."

"I gathered," I finished sarcastically, still checking myself out. "But… you guys can't do this. Not like this all the time."

"No," they agreed.

"So what's wrong with me? Why am I not like you guys? Because neither of my parents were Conduits, so… I don't have the Conduit gene. Which means…"

My mind suddenly flashed back to yesterday. "Cassy. When you healed me, did you take all the shards out?"

"I tried," she admitted. "But there were some still in too deep for me to take care of."

"And the blue stuff in the truck?" I pressed.

"Conduit crystal," Mutt supplied. "It's what some of us are calling it. Augustine uses it to power her stuff, her troops… Fortunately for us, it's chock full of power. Every time one of us drains something from it, we learn we can do even more than before."

"Hey." Cassy spoke up again. "I just realized. When I healed you, I had forgotten to take the crystal out of you. Do you think…"

"That's gotta be it," I finished. "I don't really see any other reason…"

I was worried, and a little sad, too. This… glass thing… it looked really permanent.

"Hey." Beth must have caught my mood, somehow. "It's okay. You're one of the good guys now." She gingerly reached out a hand to take my glass shard arm ending. I jerked back, not wanting her to get cut. She grinned, then turned her hand to glass as well. Only her glass was more smooth, like she was carved out of it. Then – and only then – she held the end of my arm like a hand, obviously not trusting her normal skin to survive my new, more deadly shardskin.

Suddenly, she jerked back _herself_, eyes widening. "What…"

I looked down at my arm, and almost freaked out myself. A glass shard hand was just finishing forming at the end of my arm. Each finger was about two glass plates thick, and as long as a normal finger.

"Wow…" I muttered, breathless.

I was then struck by how different my body was now from my original flesh-and-blood body. I mean, you might be like, _Dude, it took you this long? _Hey. I was getting tossed off buildings.

And sure, this could mimic fingers, and all, but it just wasn't the same as normal skin and clothes –

I looked up sharply when I heard the others gasp. "What's wrong?"

"You… your…" Beth stuttered, finally just pointing at my arm.

"WHOA!" I yelled, as the glass shards _retreated into my skin_, slicing through and sealing the outside as smooth as my skin used to be.

Feeling my face with _my real hands_, I realized I was just fine. No… better than fine. I felt…. _Alive._ Lit on fire.

Suddenly my thoughts flickered to my clothing. When I had first created the shards, they had sliced through my skin and my clothes, too. I really hoped –

Good, I wasn't naked. But still… where _did_ my clothes come from? _This wasn't what I was wearing before._ It was more nondescript, more 'average' than I was used to for my wardrobe. But it suited me and fit me just fine, so I was good.

There was opened-mouth silence from the group, so, rubbing my wrist, I turned to see what was so gape-faced about me, and to attempt to quell their terror – when I realized they weren't looking at me. Rather, they were looking at the very large DUP squad right behind me.

"Freeze!" A willowy, female voice called out. "Stop fighting and surrender, or continue your folly and perish."

Slowly turning around, I heard Nathan speak up. "Hey, hey! Augustine! How are you? Did you do something with your hai -"

"I didn't come here for pleasantries, boy," she sniffed at him from the roof of her concrete-encrusted truck. "I came for your latest Conduit experiment. And I must say, it's quite an improvement over your last. So just hand it over, and I'll give you a, hmm… five second getaway." _Experiment!?_

"And what if we don't want to? Cassy! NOW!"

Cassy grinned, and disappeared into her wraith form, billowing around the group and shielding them from the gaze of the DUPS. Simultaneously, Beth grabbed my arm, and Nathan grabbed all of us, Mutt using the brick to propel us up and away from the DUPs.

When we landed, Nathan gave a one-word answer to everyone's unspoken question: "Run!"

And so we did. But it very soon became apparent that I was the weak link. And very shortly I fell way behind the others.

A DUP truck came barreling down the street from behind, fully intending to run me over then claim it was an 'accident.' As I had no desire to be a smear of red on the ground, I ran like the wind. Only a very slow wind.

I had no desire to kill, but I really didn't like these guys.

So I decided that the only way out would be to fight them.

I stopped running and turned around.

* * *

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	3. Chapter 3

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* * *

As the truck barreled down towards me, I reached inside for the power I desperately hoped I had. But, I didn't feel any different…

The truck was 100 feet away, and almost on top of me…

I couldn't find the power. So I leapt for the side of the road, hoping the driver would miss me-

He didn't. And the world went black.

* * *

_The driver leaned over out the window. The kid was obviously dead; there was no way that neck angle bend could be natural. He actually had a shard of truck metal in his hand; the kid had managed to rip something out of the truck. The driver had to give him credit for that, at least. Well, time to report to Augustine. The experiment was no more. Unfortunate._

* * *

"_Is he okay, now?"_

"_Doubt it; I mean, sure, we can survive that, but him? I dunno. He's not as experienced as us, he might not know how to recover like us, and he'll fix himself the wrong way. I guess we'll just break him again if that happens, and he'll fix himself right the next time."_

"_Harsh, man."_

"_Yeah, well, it's a harsh world."_

_A new voice – two voices – joined the conversation. "What's up -" A gasp. "Wh… what happened?"_

"_He got hit by a DUP truck." A chuckle. "He actually managed to rip off the deer bars in front. That's what that pipe is."_

"_Is he dead?"_

"_No, just unconscious for now. Cassy, you stay with him, we'll just clear out the area for you."_

"_I can take care of myself, thank you."_

"_Not while you're taking care of him. He's a Conduit, now, so we need to watch _his_ back, too. He'd do the same for us."_

"_You're sure?"_

"_Positive. This isn't a movie where people are too blind to diss help when they see it. He's smart enough. He'll learn."_

"_Fair enough. Yeah, I'll stay with him."_

* * *

As I faded back to reality for the third time in as many days, three things were immediately obvious. Firstly, once again Cassy was the first person I saw. "Well, hello again," I grunted, sitting up again, when the second thing became obvious. My neck was _not_ on straight. "What _happened?_"

"You mean with your neck? Well, I'm supposed to break it again, and you can put it back to normal yourself."

I shuddered. "That's gross… cool, yeah, sure, it's cool, but it's really… disgusting."

She laughed. "You wanna know how many times I've had to fix my neck?"

I shuddered again. "Uh, pass."

She clenched a fist. "So, I'm going to break your neck now."

"Go ahead."

* * *

This time, when I awoke, it felt much better; my neck actually felt straight, this time around. So I had enough time to find important detail number three.

"Why can't I let go of this bar?" I asked, holding up my glassy left hand with a death grip around the metal pipe.

"I don't know," she answered truthfully. "Your glass form must not want to let go for some reason."

"Huh. Weird."

"You're telling _me._"

I grinned. "Well, now I – wait. Um… mind telling me where I got the metal spikes in my hand?"

"Metal spikes?" I showed her my glass hand, which was now sporting large metal fragments stabbing painlessly through my palm. "That's new," she murmured.

"You know why it's there?"

"No. It wasn't there before. Only the metal pole."

"Huh." Belatedly, I noticed everyone was gone. "Where _is_ everyone else?"

"They went to go clear this part of the city. Since you're a Conduit now," she got up and helped me up with my non-glass hand, "you need to watch our backs as we will watch yours."

"Make sense," I said, thinking about it. "We're that much more powerful in a group."

"But that means Augustine is gonna come after us," she warned. "If you want out, now's the time to say it."

I looked at her, incredulous. "You guys just saved my life. I'm not leaving until I repay that debt, if ever. Count me in." I held out my hand, and she grinned and took it.

A clang resounded from beside me, and I looked down to see the metal bar hit the ground. "Well, that's a good thing, too." I shook my hand, but neither the glass bits or the metal spikes would budge. I shrugged inwardly, and turned to where Cassy was peering over the roof of the small skyscraper. "See anyone?"

"Just civvies," she said absentmindedly.

I walked up next to her and looked over as well. Something caught the corner of my eye, and I looked over to the left to see what looked like a blue glowing drone zip away.

"Hey, what's that?" I asked, pointing to the drone, which was really _motoring_.

"Oh, that." She shot a smoke blast after it, nailing it on the first shot. It tumbled from the sky to land on an apartment block. "Those are just Augustine's drones. She uses them to detect Conduit activity, but thankfully they only work half the time. Still, it pays to be careful."

"Why was it glowing?" I was just bursting with questions today.

"It carried a Conduit Crystal. That's basically the thing that stabbed you the other day, only since it's a drone, it's a smaller size. They used to give us power, but now I think we've sort of maxed out. It's just an energy boost now."

"Huh. Mind if I go check it out?"

"Knock yourself out."

I hoped I didn't actually.

* * *

Staying a good bit back, like a good Conduit, I studied the drone from afar. It _seemed_ to be dead. It wasn't even twitching, so I assumed it was dead.

Slowly getting closer, I looked to where Cassy was, about 500 feet to my left. She looked like she was grinning, and waved me on, before collapsing. I could actually hear her laughter. I shot her a somewhat less-than-polite 'wave'.

Throwing caution to the wind, I just walked up to the thing. Not entirely sure what to do, I touched it. It felt almost _too_ cold, and I wondered how I was supposed to 'suck in the power'. There sure wasn't an outlet on the thing.

_Do I have to kiss it?_ I hoped not. Cracking my knuckles, I decided to be Luke Skywalker for a day. I stretched out my hand, like Luke in Episode 5, where he tries to get the lightsaber. I closed my eyes and _imagined_ the lightsaber flying into my hand, only instead of a lightsaber, I thought of the energy swirling around and diving into my hand –

IT WORKED.

It felt like I had dumped my arm up to my shoulder in a bucket of ice water, only it was exhilarating and invigorating. I realized that I had used my left hand, the one that had been holding the metal pole. Watching the blue glow fade from the shard into my hand, I began to notice that the glass bits were falling off with a quiet tinkling noise. And if I hadn't been watching intently, I wouldn't have noticed that the metal shards were beginning to multiply. They were coating my arm, but were so thin that I could barely notice them.

I almost laughed hopelessly. These? Stop Augustine? They'd need to be at least ten times as big in order to –

I stifled a yelp as they _grew_, shooting deep through my arm and out the other side, coating me in a matter of seconds with jagged metal spikes.

It was easier this time, knowing what to expect, but it still scared the _willies_ out of me.

I hadn't heard her approach, but Cassy was right next to me. "Josh? What happened?"

"Well," I stuttered, "I – I was just getting the power from the shard, like you said, and then the metal just _spreads _over my body, like the glass, last time." The metal became comfortably snug, and I could suddenly see out of my self-imposed coffin. "What do I look like?" I asked, once I could trust my voice.

"Like a blown-up metal statue," she said, and I could _just_ make out a bit of fear in her voice.

"Hey, hey, it's all good. I'm good. I'm fine, I'm… not glass," I said, moving around a bit, testing my new body.

"You still scared the crap out of me," she said, frowning a little.

Just then Mutt and Nathan landed on the rooftop, Beth a little ways behind them. "Hey Cassy," greeted Mutt. "Hi, person."

"That's Josh," Cassy explained simply

Nathan and Matt gave me a once-over. "In a word," Nathan asked, "…how?"

"Well, I have no idea," I explained. "Cassy shot down a drone, and I pulled its power. Then the metal started spiking over my body."

Beth arrived then. "What's up – oh god what happened to you Josh?" she said, taking an involuntary step back.

"Uhh…" I shrugged. "Shards?"

She gulped. "Wow. Uh… so no more glass, huh?"

"Apparently." I finished testing the basic movements, and decided now was as good a time as any.

"See you all on the ground!" I yelled, jumping.

"Wait, there's a DUP… carrier…" yelled Beth, her voice dropping off at the end.

Nathan sighed, already grabbing a few steel plates. "Let's go get him." They jumped after me. Reason I know all this is because Cassy told me later, but anyway… what happened to me?

Quite simply, I pwned.

* * *

After jumping off the roof, I instantly saw the troop carrier below, and tried to adjust accordingly. Of course, since metal isn't made to fly when it's in a lump, I just fell faster, impaling the truck nicely.

Standing up in the interior of the truck, I said, in my deepest, most menacing voice, "Get out."

And it worked like a charm. Sure, a couple of them stayed to fight, but I had those guys encased in metal coffins. Don't ask me how I did it, because I couldn't tell you if I tried.

So it was all done by the time the other four got down. I grinned through the metal face, though I doubt they saw it. "What took you all so long?" I asked, my metal spikes gesturing at the trapped DUPs.

Nathan's face crinkled. "You should have waited for us."

"Yeah," I said, leaning up against the brick wall there, "but I didn't. And look what happened. I got 'em."

"No. You didn't." Nathan pointed to where there was a last DUP trying to get away. "They're going to go back to Augustine. And they're going to talk."

"Pff. Not if we scare 'em enough."

"The only way to scare these machine gunners is to kill one of them. Which we're not gonna do."

"Why not?" It was an innocent question, but by the way the girls gasped and Mutt winced, I knew I had stepped into dangerous territory.

Nathan glared and put his face right up to mine, and I could almost see a hint of… sadness? Loss? It wasn't clear, and then it was gone. "Because we don't."

And that was that. Obviously he wasn't saying something, but there was no way I'd try to find out what it was. It was fairly clear he didn't want to talk about it.

There's a certain freedom in life. You don't have to do stupid things if you don't want to. Unlike all the sci-fi movies I'd seen, where the hero makes an obvious blunder, and then pays for it.

So I left well enough alone, nodded understanding, and let out a breath when he stalked away.

"Phew!" I managed. "Angst much."

"It's best not to tick off Nathan," Mutt supplied.

"Thanks for the tip," I muttered. "Now… how the heck do I get back to normal again?"

But like that, I _was_ normal again, nondescript clothes once again making me unremarkable against a crowd. "Huh."

Beth shook her head. "Josh, I don't know how you do what you do, and I never will."

"Like me with women," Mutt deadpanned, and I had to hold back a chuckle when Cassy nailed him with a fireball.

"Hey!" he complained, getting up and dusting himself off. "It was a fair point."

"Whatever," said Cassy, and I would not have blamed her if she had flicked her hair.

Twiddling my thumbs for a minute, I asked, "Uh… what do Conduits do for food? I'm starved."

"Well, there's a Tim's around the corner," Beth said.

"Tim's?" Mutt, Cassy, and I chorused.

"Yeah, Tim Hortons. You know? Coffee and bagel place? Timbits? Nothing?" At the blank faces, she sighed. "Follow me. Oh, and Josh? No powers in public."

"Never crossed my mind," I grinned.

* * *

**For the record, I don't own Tim Hortons. But they're awesome.**

**I also don't own anything related to Sucker Punch. But they're awesome as well.**


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